Hunger
by Vivi Dahlin
Summary: Waking up on the floor of the squad room wasn't how Olivia planned to end a long, stressful day at SVU. Once she comes to, she has an even bigger problem to contend with-one very pissed off Amanda Rollins. As they square off, some disturbing parts of the captain's past are brought to light. Devilishverse one-shot, hurt/comfort.


**A/N: **Awhile back someone suggested in a review that I write something about Olivia's tendency not to eat. I felt like I had covered that in _Idle Hands_, and didn't plan on revisiting it. Then this happened. Issuing a strong **TRIGGER WARNING** for ED's and self-harm (and some child abuse/neglect) on this one, since it messed with my head pretty good. Hurt/comfort fic. Thanks for reading and thank you to Amilyn for her badass beta skills. As always, full cover viewable on my DeviatArt page (crystallinejen).

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For the most part, it was an accident. Amanda would strongly disagree, judging by the look on her face. And, lying flat on my back in the middle of the squad room floor, I was quite literally in no position to argue. That didn't stop me from trying as she and Fin stood on either side and hoisted me up by my arms: "I'm fine, guys." I was still too weak to do much more than follow along like a marionette being walked on a string as they sat me down in the nearest desk chair. Ironically enough, it was Amanda's.

I'd been talking to her when it happened. One minute, I was leaning over to examine her laptop screen as she scrolled through the disgusting creep's blog, showing me his bizarre fetishistic ramblings; the next, the overheads went dim, the walls closed in, and I felt clammy and lightheaded. And then I was waking up on the floor, three concerned faces hovering above me. Well, Amanda was concerned. Fin looked mildly bemused, as if the sight of me sprawled half-dead on the ground was equal parts worrisome and hilarious; and Kat looked like she had just witnessed an elderly neighbor—and not one she particularly cared for—falling down the stairs. She stood back, one long arm fanning me with a case file, her expression wary.

"Did she hit her head?" she asked.

"I don't think so." Amanda's face appeared, inches from mine, blue eyes wide and searching. "I tried to catch her, but she dropped too fast. Did anybody call a bus yet? What the hell are y'all standing around gawkin' at, your captain's down—do something."

She was yelling now. It sounded much too loud over the ringing in my ears. Everything was so loud and so bright.

"How many fingers am I holding up, Liv?" Fin asked, thrusting three digits close enough that I went cross-eyed counting them. My sergeant was a model of sensitivity and medical expertise.

"A million," I muttered, pushing his hand away with the same adamance as my youngest daughter refusing a bite of dessert.

He chortled and strolled off for his desk, hands in his pockets. "She's all right, Rollins."

I nodded in agreement, gazing up at Amanda, who blocked every attempt I made to stand. She was a little hazy around the edges, hair framing her face like a pale golden halo. Her manner was anything but angelic as she continued to fuss, pinning me down by the shoulders and trying to take my pulse.

"I'm okay," I said, casting a glance back at Kat, dutifully flapping the folder, even though I wasn't overheated. My paranoia had decreased significantly in the past year, especially when I stopped lying to Amanda and my therapist—but most of all, myself—and started the antidepressants. I still hated that I needed the pills. And I still hated feeling _watched_, particularly by an overzealous rookie who thought I was old enough to be her grandma. "Didn't hit my head."

At least I didn't think I had. To be honest, the last thing I remembered was Amanda warning me that the pictures in the disgusting creep's latest blog post were extremely graphic. I was bracing myself as she scrolled, and that's when the heavy feeling I'd been trying to shake off for the past hour or so clobbered me like a sucker punch to the gut. My very empty, very nauseated gut.

It was the creep's fault. I hadn't started my day intending not to eat, but when the chief calls at 4 AM and tells you to get to the precinct for a high profile case involving the mayor's teenage daughter, you skip breakfast and haul ass.

I drank a cup of coffee around 8 AM when we discovered that the missing girl's best friend had dropped her off at the bus station the night before. At noon, when we uncovered emails of a pornographic nature on the girl's laptop, I drank two more cups.

By 2 o'clock, I realized why I was having stomach pangs, but TARU had almost narrowed down a location on an IP address and I made a sharp detour upstairs, instead of to the vending machines. Two hours later, the hunger had passed and the girl was home safely—her adult boyfriend, the online Romeo who had convinced her to send nude photographs and meet up "IRL," was still in the wind. Coffee number four, coming right up.

When 6 PM rolled around and I wasn't home with my children, wasn't any closer to catching the guy, and wasn't able to answer my cell without my hands trembling so badly I could barely hold it, I finally made my mind up to eat. But then we caught another lead on the prick's location . . .

You get the idea. This wasn't the first time I had gotten wrapped up in a case, to the point that hunger became an afterthought, a mere inconvenience. It wasn't even the first time I had passed out, although being drugged unconscious, put in a sleeper hold, pistol whipped, billy clubbed, and almost poisoned to death by toxic chemicals were all wildly different experiences. It was, however, the first time I had passed out from not eating, and I didn't recommend it. Your spunky blonde girlfriend would give you hell when she found out.

"You're not okay, dar— Liv." She glanced sidelong—my spunky blonde—when I looked towards Kat again. "You mind?" she shot back to the younger officer, then stepped in front of me, obstructing Kat's view. Her hand approached, about to take hold of my chin the way it did when we were in private, when she wanted to see into my eyes because they could never lie to her. (The joke's on you, Detective. I can't lie to you, period.)

Remembering that we were at work, surrounded by onlookers, she shifted her hand to the desk instead, leaning on it and over me, and lowered her voice. "You went down like a sack of potatoes."

Mm, potatoes.

"People don't just pass out for no reason. I mean, Christ Almighty, I thought you were having a stroke or something." She checked my pupils for the fifth or sixth time, her face so close to mine I could smell the egg salad on her breath. I didn't even like egg salad sandwiches, but when I'd gazed out of my office windows a couple hours ago and saw her munching happily at her desk with Fin and Kat, my mouth watered. Now, though, my stomach churned—loudly.

"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law, et cetera, et cetera," I said crisply, as much to distract from my rumbling gut as to assuage her fears. I stuck my tongue out straight, careful not to deviate to one side or the other, while lifting both of my arms high. The left didn't have quite the same mobility as the right, but that was from my shoulder surgery, not a lapse in brain function. "See? No slurring, nothing's crooked or drooping. I know my birthday's coming up, but despite what everyone thinks, I'm not turning eighty-seven. Strokes are a ways off. May I please return to my office now, Detective?"

I gritted the last part through my teeth, giving her a look that made it clear I was not asking. The squad room had resumed its regular hustle and bustle—keyboards clacking, phones ringing, papers shuffling—but I could feel the side eyes and the strained ears aimed in my direction.

Pursing her lips to an exaggerated degree, chin thrust forward prominently, she crossed her arms tightly across her chest and stood aside. No hand was offered, and I didn't look back once I got to my feet. I wanted to get to my office ASAP because, truth be told, my legs were as wobbly as a foal's and my vision was tunneling again.

I made it to my door without keeling over, but when I tried to throw it shut behind me, the anticipated slam never came. I glanced back to find her at my heels, latching the door soundly and whipping every last set of blinds closed like she was Mary Poppins—one snap of the fingers and the room was in perfect order for battle royale.

Oh, shit.

"Amanda, what are you doing?" I sighed, flumping into my chair so heavily it rolled several inches. I was just glad to have something solid beneath me. Gripping the edge of the desk, I pulled myself forward and propped my elbows on it. There, that felt a little more like me. Glasses already in place; glare, check. Perhaps a bit shakier than usual, but Captain Benson was a go. "Get back to work."

"You're jokin', right?" Amanda motioned broadly towards the shuttered squad room, a world outside the secluded one of her making. She only got that emphatic when she was really worked up about something. In this instance, it was me. "My girlfriend just collapsed like she got tranqed in the ass by a blowgun, and I'm supposed to what? Sit at my desk with my hands folded like a good girl. What the hell was that out there, Liv?"

Her hyperbolic expressions and gestures were almost cute—she had turned to the side and jabbed her own ass cheek during that line about the blowgun—but the more agitated she became, the more I felt myself shutting down. Not only was I sick to my stomach, my head had also started its telltale pulsing in some deep and unknown region of my skull. It was like a tracking beacon sending out sonar blips through my grey matter, except the blips were dull and throbbing pain. I had a migraine and I was in no mood to be yelled at by a lower-ranking officer, even if she was a pretty little Georgia peach.

"Would you please keep your voice down," I said, again not asking. "And maybe not make it sound quite so much like I'm a charging rhino in the bush? I just . . . got lightheaded for a second."

"Why?" She hiked up her pale eyebrows beneath her pale bangs, foot tapping expectantly. She already knew, no doubt about it. Now it was a matter of waiting for me to say it out loud, implicating myself and proving that she'd been right all along. (She had spent the better part of the morning texting me breakfast reminders from Fin's Crown Vic.)

I didn't have the patience for this game.

"Because I haven't eaten anything today, all right?" I took off my glasses and chucked them onto my closed laptop. My forehead I rested against my palm, as if checking for a fever. I really didn't feel well. Just holding my head up was a struggle. This felt more like day two or three of starvation. Four was my personal best. "You caught me. Can we please—" Glancing up to find her staring at me in disbelief, I sighed and finished lamely, "—not do this."

For a moment, Amanda simply stood there shaking her head at me, mouth slightly ajar. Her hands were on her slender little hips, interrupting the line of her snappy blazer and daffodil-colored blouse. Even with the clothes in the way, I could picture the ivory slope of those hips, the faint impression of bone underneath. She wasn't frail (and woe to anyone who suggested otherwise) but there was a delicacy to her that appealed to me. I'd never been involved with anyone smaller than myself, yet somehow she made me feel safer than any towering set of muscles ever had. None of them had ever dared to cross me quite like she did, though. I couldn't tell if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

"Oh, we're doin' it," she said matter-of-factly. She put on a show of glancing at her watch, then tapped the dial and indicated that I should look at mine. No, not should—must. When I refused so much as a peek at it or the digital clock next to my RBG figurine, she marched around my desk, took my left wrist, and jiggled my watch at me. "It's quarter after seven and you're telling me you haven't fed yourself today. Do you have any idea how stupid that is, Olivia? Fuck's sake. I thought we were past this."

Up until that moment, she'd had me. I was approaching contrite, ready to admit my wrongdoing and move on to forgiveness. We hadn't argued about my appetite—or lack thereof—since last Mother's Day, when we were on edge about the holiday and the complicated emotions it brought up for both of us. Since then, I had gained back some of the lost weight, bordering on a comfortable one-fifty. Ideal for my height and age range, the doctor assured me. I rarely skipped meals anymore, and I'd even come to enjoy overindulging once in a while, just because it tickled Amanda pink to see me do it.

And then she had to go and use that word:

Stupid.

That was my mother's word. She had never called me that directly, at least not while she was sober, but the implications were there. Muttered as she turned away, posed as a hypothetical ("You're stupid if . . . "). Whenever I misunderstood her or couldn't comprehend a subject she excelled in; whenever I defied her. After hearing my actions and behavior categorized as "stupid" enough times, I started to get the gist—she considered _me_ stupid. No matter how high my grades were, how many awards I won, or how many times I made the honor roll, all that mattered were the times I didn't. Then I was defective. _His_ daughter. His idiot kid that she never wanted in the first place.

I jerked my hand away from Amanda and dropped it into my lap, tucking it between my thighs. "If I'm so fucking stupid, why the hell are you even with me, Rollins? Huh? Maybe you should just . . . "

But I couldn't bring myself to finish. From the look on her face, she knew what I was getting at, anyway. She blanched several shades lighter, if that was humanly possible, and stood back from me as if I had pushed her. It broke my heart, but hunger and the fainting spell had slowed my reaction time considerably. I only had enough energy to gaze up at her, head in hand.

God, she was right. So very stupid.

"That's not what I—" She tugged anxiously at her bottom lip, shifting her weight back and forth from foot to foot. Jesse did the very same thing whenever she got scolded. My eyes brimmed with tears at the thought, and I shut them tight, not wanting her to see. "I didn't mean it that way," she said, her voice level this time. Gentler. I heard her move closer, and when I opened my eyes, she turned my chair towards her and knelt down in front of me. "I'm sorry. You know I don't think you're stupid. You're one of the smartest people I know, darlin'. Which is why I don't get you doing this to yourself. It's dangerous. Are you . . . I dunno, are you trying to punish yourself or something?"

I scoffed a little too forcefully and shook my head, but cut the movement short when the thrumming in my skull intensified. "Why would I do that?" I asked with less conviction than I would have liked. One way of throwing your opponent off, especially when you didn't have a good defense, was to turn the tables on them. It worked in physical confrontations and even better for verbal sparring. I'd learned that years ago, long before the academy. Serena taught me that one, too. Make the other person answer their own question, make it about their issues instead of yours. ("Where the hell were you last night, Olivia Margaret?" _You first, Mom—where the hell were _you_?_)

"I don't know." Amanda sounded truly baffled, and again, I felt the knife twist in my chest. She had been so patient and understanding with me through most of my recovery, from Calvin to Orion and all of the past horrors they dredged up, all the new horrors they created. I shouldn't be tormenting her with guessing games and smoke screens. She deserved the truth, no matter how difficult or painful it was for me to give.

"Maybe because of . . . those phone calls you were getting? They shook you up pretty good. Brought up some real awful stuff. You've been a little on edge since then." She worked at freeing my hand from between my knees, giving me ample opportunity to pull away if I didn't want to be handled. (I hated that there were times when even her touch was too much for me. It seldom happened anymore, thank God. Most days I craved her touch like I craved air, water. Food.) She cupped my hand in both of hers and breathed on it, chafing lightly, though I wasn't cold. "It kinda makes sense. We never figured out who that shithead was. Now we're hunting down this new shithead and you're knocking yourself out to find him. Literally."

She didn't know it, but she had been so damn close. Her glove was up, the ball headed straight to her, crowd going wild in the stands—and she let it sail right on by. If I felt guilty or unsettled by anything related to those calls, it wasn't the failure to catch the person responsible, or even the threat to my own safety. I was used to that by now. Criminals had been trying to frighten me off my entire career, and I'd be damned if I'd give in to fear after all this time. What I couldn't get past, and what had really terrified me about those calls, was how susceptible I could be to suggestion, how close to the surface my traumas remained. Not to mention that I had held a gun to Amanda's head. When your finger has been a single flicker away from killing the person you love, the color drained out of your world a little bit. The edges went hazy, like they were when I came to in the squad room moments ago. And food had no taste or appeal.

I'd been fighting like hell not to let those feelings overpower me. One night last week, I even managed to forget them altogether by surprising Amanda with a role playing scenario she'd been hinting at since the noir marathon we fell asleep watching on TCM weeks earlier. It was easy to ignore my problems when I slipped my own skin and stepped into Maggie's—the hot to trot femme fatale who wanted one thing and one thing only from Jo Rollins, the sexy private eye with questionable ethics. But in the morning, when I was plain old Olivia again, overthinking everything, dissecting the most minute details, I had managed to ruin even that bit of fun.

The Maker's Mark was partly to blame. I had tasted it on my tongue the whole next day, long after brushing my teeth (twice) and swishing Listerine (which had a similar flavor, quite frankly). I didn't care for bourbon all that much, or whiskey in general, but Amanda liked it. After a couple of glasses, I did too.

In fact, after a couple of glasses, there wasn't much I _didn't_ like: sex in the living room where my children could walk in at any moment, like I had walked in on my mother sucking a stranger's dick in our living room when I was ten years old; rubbing myself off on Amanda's thigh, the same way Amelia Cole had rubbed herself off on me in that warehouse covered in rat shit and the DNA of dead women with my face; playing the helpless, mistreated female because I knew it would arouse Amanda in ways I shouldn't indulge—her need to protect, her affinity for danger and, to a lesser but still troublesome degree, violence. She understood violence the way I understood alcohol, its sway and how it often went hand in hand with love, with sexual desire. Those were the lessons our parents taught us, and it had taken us a lifetime to unlearn them. And I had used them to make myself more fuckable.

Christ, no wonder I didn't want food. Maybe she had it right, and I was punishing myself? I certainly deserved it.

But I couldn't tell her that. Not without admitting I'd taken advantage of her vulnerabilities, and that shamed me too deeply to put it in words.

"Might be some of it," I said vaguely, still wanting to give her a satisfying answer. Something to allay the worry I'd caused with my body's dramatic response to a hunger I no longer felt. I hooked my thumb around hers, rubbing at her knuckles, trying to offer some more of the affection she sought. I was so damn tired. "But it wasn't intentional. I just got wrapped up in the case and forgot to eat. Really, sweetheart. You know how it is when we're _this_ close to catching the son of a bitch."

She eyed me skeptically, as if she really didn't know after all. I had seen her consume an entire pack of Double Stuf Oreos in one sitting and then ask about dinner an hour later, so I shouldn't be surprised. Amanda Jo Rollins seldom met a meal she didn't like, and I doubted she had ever willingly skipped one—let alone all three—in her life. "You sure?" she asked, cocking her head to the side. She toyed with my thumb for several silent beats, finally pinning it beneath the same finger on her own hand. You lose, Captain. "You weren't trying to hurt yourself . . . were you?"

"You mean like self-harm?" I gave an incredulous sniff of laughter I didn't much like the sound of and held the insides of my wrists out to her, pulling back both sleeves to reveal smooth skin. My scars weren't on my arms. "I'm not some angsty teenaged cutter who needs to bleed in order to feel. I'm not Millie. Give me just a little more credit than that, Amanda. Jesus."

Amelia's name had slipped out with no prior consideration on my part. It was almost a shock to hear her name spoken aloud. I wrote and thought about it often—about her—but I hadn't talked about her in months. I hadn't talked about any of them.

"People hurt themselves in all kinds of ways, Liv," Amanda said slowly, choosing her words with care. I hated that she felt the need to do that with me. For me. Like I was too fragile to hear the truth and nothing but. "Not just with cutting. And not just as teenagers. I don't mean there's something wrong with you. It's just . . . I'd call starving yourself to the point of passing out pretty damn harmful, wouldn't you?"

I would indeed. And I knew she was right, at least about the many different ways self-harm manifested. But the implication that I was so psychologically damaged I would hurt myself on purpose was not acceptable. The scars on my body and my mind were put there by the hands of others, not my own. That's what I told myself to get through the day, anyway. (Hadn't I walked right into those hands, time and again? Lewis beckoned, and I came running. Harris, Calvin and Amelia, even my own mother . . . none of them could have touched me, had I not put myself in those positions. If that wasn't self-harm, what was?)

My head pounded so ruthlessly I had trouble focusing my vision. I pinched the bridge of my nose, responding to the question—hers and mine—with a noncommittal hum. She sighed and I sensed her frustration with me, but I was too queasy, my brain too leaden and numb, to care.

"If I grab you something from the vending machines, will you eat it?" she asked, getting to her feet. Mind made.

"If I eat anything right now, I'll vomit," I said, rubbing at either temple with my fingertips. Even though she was blurry and hard for my sensitive eyes to look at in the light, I recognized that frown. "But I'll try, yeah. Maybe some peanut butter crackers. Not the cheese kind, or I really will puke."

She was already halfway out the door, digging change from her pocket as she went, when I had another thought and called after her, "No Pop Tarts, either."

I had lived on the toaster pastries for much of my childhood, after discovering how simple they were to fix, how long I could make a box of them last, and how easy it was to stuff the individual silver packets into your clothes and walk out of the store when Mommy was passed out at home, too drunk to feed you. While other kids my age were stealing for fun or curiosity, I stole for necessity. These days, whenever I attempted to eat a Pop Tart or, more typically, smelled them heating up for my children's breakfast, my stomach still hurt like it had when I was eight years old and ashamed of my thievery.

An EMT came knocking on my open office door moments after Amanda stepped out. He was tightening the blood pressure cuff on my arm, listening with a stethoscope to the pulse I could have told him was elevated, when she returned with a packet of Toasty crackers, an armload of Sun Chips in multiple flavors, candy bars, an orange juice, a Coke, and three bottles of water. Somehow my girlfriend had gotten it into her head that I was either in diabetic shock or embarking on a long journey that required serious provisions. Even the EMT raised an eyebrow at the hoard she dumped across my desk.

"She tell you she hasn't eaten anything today?" Amanda asked him while looking pointedly at me and tearing open the cellophane on the crackers. She handed them over and broke the seal on the Tropicana cap with a sharp twist. "At all."

"That right?" The young medic glanced at me for confirmation as he attached the electrodes from a portable ECG to my chest. He didn't look a day over fifteen, and it felt mildly inappropriate unbuttoning the top of my blouse for him to place the round patches. Fortunately, he was all business and kept his eyes on the monitor, rather than my cleavage. The detective standing over my shoulder made sure of it. "Any particular reason you were fasting, or . . . ?"

Fasting. I liked that word much better than the alternative. It held religious connotations, suggesting I had abstained from food for a higher, nobler purpose than mere self-loathing. I was fasting until a sexual deviant had been caught and justice served.

"I've been trying to track down a missing girl and an online predator all day," I said, and rotated a peanut butter cracker between my fingers, examining each side as if one was more preferable to bite into than the other three. I really did not feel like eating it, but Amanda was boring holes into me with her steely blue eyes. Tentatively, I nibbled at the corner. "Just didn't have time to stop for lunch."

I could hear Amanda thinking: _Or breakfast, or dinner_. She rested her hand at the nape of my neck, kneading lightly at it through the thick bundle of hair gathered there, and offered the open Tropicana bottle with the other. "Had time for four or five coffees, though," she said quietly, as I sipped.

"Four." I set the orange juice down too hard and displayed four fingers, now dripping wet. My stomach churned at the sight of the liquid sploshing from inside the bottle and trickling onto my desk calendar, yellow droplets seeping into the paper. Normally, I liked orange juice, but neither it nor the crackers were agreeing with me at the moment.

"Well, that explains your heart rate," the EMT commented, still studying the monitor he was holding.

"Is it bad?" Amanda asked, her fingers tensing against the back of my neck. A fretful note in her voice made her sound terribly young and afraid, and I felt the urge to hold her the way I held Jesse when she was frightened or upset. Only this time I had caused the emotions, the fear that so rarely presented itself in either of my Rollins girls.

_Stupid_. How could I be so stupid?

"It's a little higher than I'd like to see. That much caffeine could definitely be a factor, especially on an empty stomach. Are you taking any medications?" He began peeling the electrodes off my skin, and I caught the briefest whiff of latex from his gloves. It was enough.

Turning quickly, I snatched up the waste basket from under my desk and emptied half a peanut butter cracker, a tablespoon of OJ, and what was left of my liquid lunch into the plastic liner. I spent the next several seconds dry heaving, my face inside the trash bag, while Amanda stroked my back and explained that I took Zoloft for anxiety and post-traumatic stress. Fantastic.

"Told you I'd puke," I groaned when I had finished retching and spitting out sticky, sour-tasting strands of saliva. Amanda was ready with a box of tissues, a handful of which I scrubbed across my mouth as she intercepted the basket and held it away from both of us. A pungent mixture of orange juice and coffee wafted from inside, and she hastily tied the bag shut, standing the entire container on the floor in front of my desk to be dealt with later.

She was immediately back at my side, watching the EMT anxiously as he repacked his equipment and gave his diagnosis: I wasn't dying or having a stroke or heart attack. In all likelihood, the combination of stress, hunger, and caffeine—with a side of Zoloft—resulted in a momentary meet-cute of tachycardia and hypotension. Cupid's arrow had knocked me flat on my ass. Not much else to be done. The treatment plan was what you'd expect. Eat. Hydrate. Rest. Lay off the damn caffeine.

"Meet-cute, my ass," Amanda scoffed, once the medic had gone, on his way out advising a trip to the ER if my symptoms persisted. "I think we should get a second opinion. Doogie Howser, Ambulance Edition doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. C'mon, I'm taking you to the hospital."

"Amanda. No."

"Olivia. Yes."

I folded my arms stubbornly across my chest and stared her down as she stood there holding my coat and purse, glaring right back. It was almost amusing, except neither of us were laughing and I still had the smell of vomit in my nostrils, the taste on my tongue. The bass drum was pounding steadily in my skull. The feeling I'd mistaken for suppressed humor was actually exhaustion and a sudden desire to lay my head on the desk and cry.

"Go back to work, Detective." Right then, I couldn't summon the strength or the authority needed to give the words their full impact, and that frustrated me more than Amanda's refusal to heed them. "That's an order."

She didn't budge, though I saw a glimmer of uncertainty pass over her features—and disappear just as swiftly. "Sorry, but no. I only accept orders from my captain, and right now she takes a backseat to my girlfriend, who had a health scare not more'n twenty minutes ago. So unless you're telling me I can't leave work for a family emergency, then I guess I'm free to go and take care of her."

"Oh my God," I moaned into the hands I'd used to cover my face. I loved her more than life itself, but sometimes she was infuriating.

And yet . . . I couldn't think of a time when I'd been important enough to warrant a "family emergency" excuse with anyone. I once spent four days in the hospital after a bout of appendicitis that required emergency surgery—it was my fifth grade teacher who noticed the symptoms and took me to the school nurse, and who came to visit me every afternoon. My mother never missed a minute of work those entire four days or during my subsequent recovery at home.

How could I fault Amanda for wanting to be there for me in a way no one else ever had?

A knock at the door interrupted whatever response I was about to give. I dragged my palms down my cheeks and opened my eyes to see Fin's head poking into the office. "I get that y'all are about to cap each other's ass up in here, but Liv, thought you should know we got the guy. I'm headed for Staten Island now. You coming with?"

As soon as I tried to stand up, I knew I wouldn't be going anywhere except straight home and into bed. My legs were sturdier, but my head felt too heavy to lift and I sank back into the chair, teeth clenched against the swell of pain emanating from behind my forehead. Worst migraine I'd had in months, and there was no one to blame but myself. I couldn't even play it off as nothing—my officers had already seen. Amanda was gazing stonily at me, daring me to accept the invitation.

"I'll sit this one out, Sergeant." I avoided Amanda's eye, not sure I would stick to my word if she looked too victorious. "You good taking the lead?"

"Copy that, Cap. Ain't my first rodeo."

"Okay. Go get the son of a bitch." For a second, I was the boss again. God was in His heaven and all was right with the world. Then Amanda cleared her throat about as subtly as an eighty-year-old man with end-stage emphysema. "I'm headed home for the night," I added in an offhand tone that wasn't fooling anyone. "If you need anything, call me. I mean it, Fin."

"I know you do. And I will." He cast a sly smile at Amanda, bid us both goodnight, and quietly closed the door.

We regarded each other for a while, my detective and I. Finally, I pocketed my cell phone, collected my glasses and a bag of chips, and heaved myself up from the desk. When Amanda came around to help, fitting me into my tawny overcoat—a color that reminded me of a lion—I didn't object. However:

"I'm not going to the hospital," I said decisively. "I'll let you take me home, and I'll eat whatever I can keep down, but I'm not sitting in an ER for hours just so they can tell me what I already know. Got it?"

"Okay, darlin'." She was placating me, I could tell, and yet I still looped an arm through the one she offered, allowing her to guide the way. "I got ya."

An hour later, we were home and I was fed. I'd eaten seven or eight handfuls of dry Raisin Bran straight from the box, carrying it with me from kitchen to bedroom like a vagabond woman, munching as I went. None of the other members of my household would touch what Amanda called my "old lady cereal," so I didn't feel too guilty about the feral behavior. The box stood open on the nightstand, next to the remains of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (I'd finished half, under Amanda's watchful eye). She'd plied me with so many glasses of water, I had to get up every fifteen minutes to pee.

Now, though, things had begun to settle—my stomach, my bladder, the kids, and my girlfriend. All three children were tucked into bed, and so was I, Amanda niched in behind me, despite the fairly early hour. She sat upright against the headboard, a leg on either side of me, my upper body half cradled to her chest. A perfect fit. She hadn't stopped playing with my hair and massaging my scalp since she'd crawled into bed with me, and I wasn't about to complain. In fact, I was in a bit of a stupor and at first didn't recognize the song she'd been serenading me with, in a lazy exchange of murmurs ("_Baby, when I think about you, I think about love"_), whispers ("_Darlin', don't live without you and your love"_), and humming kisses pressed to the top of my head. Only when she reached the chorus and sang it outright was I able to place the Bad Company tune from my youth:

"_Feel like makin' . . . feel like makin' love . . . feel like makin' love to you . . . "_

I laughed until I had to pee again and the lingering pain in my head flared back to brilliant, excruciating life. "Really?" I asked, turning just enough for a sidelong glance up at her. It felt a little like being stabbed in the optic nerve, but I had to see her face. She was pleased as punch, just as I suspected. "I'm incapacitated, and that's what you come at me with?"

"You don't have to do much." She stroked the hair back from my forehead, leaning over to kiss me there. "Just lie back and enjoy the ride, baby."

"Amanda!" I swatted her on the thigh, though I knew she was kidding.

At least she better be.

"I'm just pullin' your leg," she rumbled in my ear, kissing that too. "I want you to rest, okay? You got a full day of eating ahead of you tomorrow. And the day after that, and the day after that . . . "

I stayed quiet for a long time, and I could tell she thought I'd fallen asleep, because the rhythm of her hands slowed, her fingers barely kneading the back of my neck, my scalp. Her breathing leveled out as well, and I worried I had missed my chance. But when I peeked over my shoulder, her eyes were open, gazing down at me.

"What is it?" she asked so softly I could have burst into tears. (But didn't.) "You know you can tell me anything."

"My mother—" I hated the words as soon as they left my mouth. Fifty-two years old and still blaming a dead woman for all my problems, still not over the scars she'd given me, like they were my birthright. And hadn't they been? I was, after all, her deepest and most painful scar, walking around outside of her body, constantly needing, constantly hungry.

"She used to go on these drinking binges," I said, licking my lips a few times. For some reason, I expected them to be cracked and sore. To taste like vodka. "Most only lasted a day or two, but sometimes they were longer. I think the longest was five days? I was fourteen."

"Jesus."

"Yeah." I shivered when she combed the hair back from my temples with her fingers. She pulled the covers tighter around me, hugging me close. "There wasn't always food in the house. It was worse when I was really young, because I didn't know what to do, you know?"

"'Course you didn't. You were just a baby."

"I think I was about five when I figured out how to beg food off the neighbors. This kid gave me a whole box of Pop Tarts. I ate so many I puked." It wasn't a fond memory, but all the same, I smiled as though it were. Dear little Livvy, vomiting into the trash. I hadn't changed a bit. "But after that, I didn't go hungry for a while. She would have killed me if she'd known I was basically panhandling door to door."

Amanda heard the break in my voice and began rubbing my arm and back in slow, comforting circles. "It's smart. Dangerous as hell, but you were surviving."

"Well, surviving turned into stealing when I got a little older," I said, and automatically held my breath. It was silly to be worried how she would react—how anyone would react, after all this time—but I didn't want to be laughed at or told the crimes, petty or not, didn't matter. "I only ever took food. And money from her purse to buy food."

"Again, smart. I took money from my mama's purse too, but it never went towards food. Unless you count dilly bars from Dairy Queen." She gave my side a light, playful pinch, but there was nothing patronizing in her voice. I knew there wouldn't be. "You were a good kid, Liv. A _smart_ kid. You only did that stuff because you had to."

I nodded against her chest, inhaling deeply. She smelled like the peanut butter sandwich she'd made for me and the cherry blossom lotion she slathered on her hands to keep them from chapping in the winter. Also for my benefit. "It got a little better as I got older. I realized if I stayed the night at a friend's house, their parents would feed me. That only lasted so long, though. I never asked them to stay at my house, so eventually they stopped inviting me to theirs."

"See? You were a damn sight brighter'n I was. Took me till junior high to realize I shouldn't be dragging my friends into the hot mess I called a family. By then, they were all so used to the screaming, we just cranked up the music and pretended not to hear the thumps in the background . . . "

"God," I whispered, then bit down on my bottom lip as I waited for her to continue. This seemed like a face-to-face conversation, but if I turned to look at her now or said too much, I knew she wouldn't finish. Revelations about her childhood, when they did come, were either brief and out of the blue or hurled like weapons in a heated moment. Whenever I pushed, she pushed back twice as hard.

"Wadn't long after that, I started sneaking out at night anyway." Amanda shrugged so faintly I barely felt the twitch in her shoulder. She cupped her hand to the side of my head, as if apologizing for the movement, and glided her palm down the length of my hair. It was longer now than it ever had been in my thirties or forties, and though I disliked the upkeep, moments like these were why I couldn't bear to cut it. "I don't think I spent more than two consecutive nights in my own bed through most of high school. Good thing my friends' parents were oblivious to the extra kid in their houses. Backfired, though. Turns out you get a reputation even when you're literally _sleeping_ around. Eventually I just gave them what they expected."

I had heard a few stories about the reputation she'd garnered in high school, but not the specifics. We weren't in a place—professionally or personally—for me to ask about the origin of the nickname "Easy-ass Amanda" when she had revealed it to a teenage victim years ago, and I'd been too hammered, too smitten, and too raw to press for more details about her first sexual experience with a girl at church camp when it came up last Valentine's Day. I had gotten the sense it wasn't her first time. If not, she had lost her virginity at a very young age.

"You were just trying to survive too, love," I said, taking her by the hand and kissing her palm. I laid it flat against my chest, covering it with my hand. It was a wish for something I couldn't articulate. (Healing? Solace? Freedom from the past?) "We both needed . . . more. At least you knew how to rely on other people. I pushed everyone away. Thought I could do it on my own. I was such a lonely kid . . . "

Tears filled my eyes at the confession. I blinked them back furiously, determined not to give in. I hadn't cried today, and the days that I could say that were few and far between. "I'm sorry," I said, sniffling and massaging the back of her hand with my fingertips. "I interrupted you. What happened when you started sneaking out?"

"Huh-uh." Amanda huddled forward, resting her cheek in my hair and squeezing me tight with the arm wrapped around my shoulder. I noticed then that the migraine had gone, leaving my head feeling strangely hollow but mostly pain-free. She always seemed to have the magic touch. "I interrupted you. Finish telling me about your mama. Did it get any better after that time when you were fourteen?"

Did it? If I were to be honest, no—it got worse. The older I was, the more of a woman I became, the more my mother had resented me. That deep, deep scar, independent of her body and a constant reminder of what she had lost. What my father took from her.

I wasn't a scar. I was an open, bleeding wound.

Sighing, I gave a limp shrug. Thinking about my mother was as exhausting as fainting. As sicking up whatever was left in your stomach. As migraines. I would rather have talked about Amanda's family issues some more, but she had already moved on, that was evident in her tone.

"Not really," I admitted dully. "I just got better at taking care of myself. Or, I guess . . . ignoring what I needed."

"How do you mean?"

"I stopped caring so much what was being denied me—food, security, love. At least I tried." It was hard to swallow past the lump in my throat, and I made several dry gulping sounds before I was successful. "I never had a full-blown eating disorder, but I learned to not want food. It felt good sometimes. To the point that I intentionally skipped meals."

I glanced up warily, though I didn't have a view of her face. She grazed her fingernails back and forth against my chest. Still listening. "It was something I could control when everything else was falling apart around me. Hunger started to feel like— like weakness. If I gave into it, that meant _I_ was weak."

"Sounds an awful lot like an eating disorder to me, my darlin'." Amanda softened the words with a kiss and more fingernail scratches. "How long'd that go on for?"

"Most of high school. Freshman year of college." I nibbled on the inside of my cheek until I realized what I was doing. I didn't need any more bad habits. "Here and there in between . . . "

A nod, another kiss.

"It worked out great back then. I was so tall and thin. The boys loved it, the girls were jealous. They couldn't understand how I ate all that Cap'n Crunch and didn't gain weight." My gaze wandered to the cereal box on the nightstand. I almost laughed. "Never occurred to them that's the only thing I _was_ eating."

"That why you always look a little green around the gills when the kids ask for it?"

"Do I?"

She chuckled once, lightly, and caressed bare skin, her fingers just inside the collar of my flannel pajama top. Cherry blossoms drifted up from the soft pink fabric. I would smell their sweet aroma while I slept, now. "Yeah, honey, you do. I thought it was all the empty calories. Or that, for a while there, he outranked you."

"Hilarious." I nudged her with my elbow, but breathed a small sigh of laughter as well. She almost always knew how to lighten my mood. "Actually, though . . . that's kind of what got me back on track. The rank thing, not the cereal. When I figured out that I wanted to be a cop, I knew I had to get my head in order. And my body. I started talking to the counselor on campus, and she really helped me. With a lot more than just the eating."

"What'd I tell ya? Smart as hell."

"Okay, sweetheart, I get it. You don't think I'm stupid." I gave her wrist an affectionate pat, then went on stroking it idly. "It was a good decision, though. Therapy always has been. For me, anyway."

No harm in a little subliminal advertising, right?

When she didn't respond, I continued as if there had been no pause. "It hasn't been perfect, of course. Nothing is solved, precisely. But I know better ways of coping now. Sometimes, I just . . . "

"You forget," she said, her drawl gentle and soothing enough to be a lullaby.

"Yes. Especially after Lewis—" His name was even more of a shock to the system than Amelia Cole's, and I had to stop and gather myself for a moment. I resumed in a shaky voice. "What he did to me. That was a big setback. Not just the— the assault, but what he withheld. No food for four days. Forcing the vodka down my throat. That was _her_ drink. It's like he knew . . . a-all my weaknesses."

This time I cried. He always made me cry. But she held me so tightly, I didn't fall quite as far or quite as hard. "I was a mess for a long time after that," I said, as if she didn't know. Hadn't seen. As if they all hadn't seen how close he'd come to destroying me. "Poor Brian couldn't figure out why I was never hungry."

"Poor Brian is a dumbass," Amanda announced, leaving no room for interpretation.

"Yes, well. Dumbass or not, I didn't treat him fairly. I was drinking way too much and shutting him out. I just couldn't talk to him." I tipped my head back to look up at her, blinking as her long blonde hair fell into my eyelashes, soft as snowflakes. "Not like I can with you."

Smiling gently, she cupped my chin in her palm and leaned down for a tender kiss on the lips. It warmed me to my toes, and I kept my eyes closed for a while after it ended, savoring the feelings of love and safety and acceptance, for which I had yearned my entire childhood and most of my adult life as well. Feelings I hadn't fully experienced until I met her.

"I'm sorry I scared you," I breathed, unable to find my voice. My heart was too full. "I won't do that to you anymore."

"I'd rather hear ya say you won't do it to yourself." She stroked my cheek with her thumb, sending chills down my spine. Good ones.

"Or myself. I promise."

Seldom did I make a promise I couldn't keep.

Seldom had I had someone worth making promises to.

"I've got everything I need," I said, hugging her arm to my chest. "Don't have to be hungry anymore."

"Roll over for me, sweet darlin'," Amanda murmured in my ear a few minutes later. How many, I couldn't say, because I'd started to doze off after our conversation slowed.

"'Kay. Why?"

"Back scratches. Always puts you out like a light." She helped me turn over onto my stomach, her warm hand slipping up the back of my pajama top when I snuggled against her side. I was half-asleep already, but I heard her tease, "I know that's really why you pulled that stunt at work, Cap'n. So I'd bring you home and do this."

"Darn, you caught me."

I was out before her short little nails made it past my shoulders. My dreams were not of food, but cherry blossoms.

**. . . **

**THE END**


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